20 Years -- And It's Still Unforgettable

In case you thought I forgot... April 1, 1985. A date that every Villanova alum knows by heart.

I wasn't an alum back then -- I was ten years old and had no affiliation with the school, other than the fact that I lived in the Philadelphia area. But what i recall about it was that I was a sports nut (big shock), I loved college basketball (what a revelation) and I was growing up in a part of the country where Big East basketball games were on TV all the time.

I didn't know enough to respect the idea that the Big East was less than a decade old. As far as I was concerned, Georgetown had always been the big dog on the block, along with St. John's and to a lesser extent Syracuse. I figured that these schools were just as good as the big-name schools in other conferences, like North Carolina and Kentucky and UCLA. Okay, I knew those schools had all these national titles, but why was the Big East any different?

Back then, I rooted for everyone in the Philly Big Five, but Villanova most of all, since they received the most coverage and had the best teams. Penn had made a Final Four run in 1979, but I was too young for that. The 'Nova teams with John Pinone were the first that I really recall as a kid, and I watched the Big East religiously.

It's funny -- the conference as a whole wasn't all that strong. U Conn was nothing -- seriously, Calhoun didn't take the job there until 1986, and the team didn't become a consistent winner until the early 1990's. Seton Hall was a joke. Providence was an annoying team, but Pitino only took over there after the 1985 season. BC was nothing special. Ditto Pittsburgh until Paul Evans' arrival in the mid-80's, and even then, they only got famous for destroying backboards.

To me, the conference consisted of Georgetown, Syracuse and St. Johns, with Villanova and BC fighting to join the top tier. Hell, for the first ten years, the only teams to win the Big East Conference Tournament championship were those first three schools. Nova made a couple nice runs to the conference title game, but we never reached a point where we hit the jackpot. As a kid, my big memory of Villanova and the Big East was that the top three would consistently beat us, either by agonizingly close margins (Syracuse and Georgetown) or wipe the floor with us (St. John's and Chris Mullin used to kill the Wildcats).

By the time 1985 rolled around, Georgetown was the defending national champion and the most fearsome team in the land. They lost only two games in the regular season -- once each to St. John's and Syracuse, naturally. St. John's spent most of the season trading the #1 ranking with the Hoyas. Villanova was good, but lost their two games with Hoyas by a combined total of nine points, including an OT loss at the Spectrum.

I hated the Hoyas. I think just about everyone either loved them or hated them -- there wasn't an in-between. Patrick Ewing and his teammates ticked off opposing fans in a fearsome way. It's not like loathing Duke or Carolina, where it's about loathing the pedigree as much as the team. But Ewing's teams stuck fear into the opposition in a way that's hard to describe -- even the early 1990's UNLV teams weren't this intimidating. The closest reference point might be the 1985 Bears.

So then the NCAA tournament hits, and the 'Cats, who squeaked in at 19-10, begin their improbable run...

The Wildcats opened with a 51-49 victory over ninth-seeded Dayton - at Dayton. Villanova then got by top-seeded Michigan, 59-55; fifth-seeded Maryland, 46-43; second-seeded North Carolina, 56-44; and another second-seeded team, Memphis State, 52-45.

Take a look at that run. The first three games were decided by nine points. Hell, beating Dayton at Dayton was as impressive as knocking out UNC in the regional final (that UNC team had lost Jordan and Perkins from the year before). The players they beat included guys like Len Bias at Maryland, Antoine Joibert, Gary Grant and Roy Tarpley at Michigan, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith at UNC, Kirk Lee at Memphis.

Meanwhile, Georgetown smoked everyone they faced; only Georgia Tech stayed within single digits. The Hoyas ripped #2 St. John's in the national semifinal. They were going to be anointed one of the great teams in college basketball history on April Fool's Night, when they won their second straight title. Ewing would ride off to the NBA with three Final Four appearances and two titles.

If you don't know what happened that night, you probably quit reading a while ago. But if you need a refresher, catch HBO's Perfect Upset. I begged my parents to stay up and watch that game, and to this day it's one of my lasting sports memories -- right up there with the 1980 Miracle on Ice the Eagles' Super Bowl victory (okay, I'm making the last one up).

Hey, that night makes up for everything else -- the ODU loss, phone card scandals, the entire Steve Lappas era -- everything. Even the UNC loss -- as Luke Winn of SI noted, we got hosed by referee Tom O'Neill's call, but miracles don't happen every time. That's why you cherish them more when they do happen.

20 years. When I was in school, I used to mock the bookstore for selling paraphenalia based on that night. Now I wish I'd bought more of it.